'I love Gabby, but the club were right to suspend him'

The mother of Aston Villa’s Gabriel Agbonlahor has opened her heart about his alleged drink and laughing gas binge, saying: “I always knew he’d go off the rails – but I still love him.”

Tina Burgess backed the club for suspending her estranged son, 29, after his reported antics in a London hotel last Saturday, the day his side was relegated.

But despite not having spoken to Gabriel for 27 years, she says she still worries about his off-field behaviour and will always love him.

Tina, 55, also revealed how she recently received life-saving brain surgery, and still hopes for a reconciliation with the former England international.

Tina is a Villa season ticket holder and poignantly her only chance to get close to her son is on match days at Villa Park when she watches him from afar.

And she admits she gets upset when Gabby receives abuse from the stands.

Tina last saw Gabby in 1989 when she left him, his two brothers Charisma and Michael and their sister Joy in a creche before a Birmingham family court granted dad Samson Agbonlahor full custody.

Former teaching assistant Tina, who lives in a two-bedroom flat in Nechells, says she later lost a custody battle because she was classed as “homeless”.